On Monday I shared images of the village of Oberwesel with you. Yesterday I shared some of the churches that we viewed while on our Viking Longship Ingvi. And today, I want to share a few images of the famed castle in Oberwesel – Schoenburg Castle!
Schoenburg Castle sits high on a hill overlooking the town of Oberwesel. It dates to the twelfth century.
Sometime in the thirteenth century, three keeps were added to the original structure and multiple families actually shared the castle.
In 1689 it was burned and plundered. So, what we see today is actually what has been rebuilt on site.
It is a huge castle. When you first see it from the Rhine at a distance it appears to be a large castle complex. But when you see it head on, you can really see the enormity of the site.
You can see the many different types of architecture that were added on through the centuries. Even one section is made of the same red stone as the Church of Our Lady in the village below.
The castle of course belonged to the Schonburg family, for which it was named. The last Schonburg died in 1790 and the castle was turned over to officials before being purchased at the end of the nineteenth century by a German-American banker who restored it.
In 1950 Oberwesel purchased the castle back and it now is a tourist attraction.
How fortunate for us that this castle was preserved. It was wonderful to see it while we were cruising along the Rhine. And we also found out a bit of interesting information from our Viking Guide.
It appears that Duke Friedrich von Schönburg, a brilliant military leader in his time, was killed by a stray bullet in the Battle of the Boyne in 1690 – a religious battle that lasted for over 300 years in Ireland between the Protestants and Catholics. And he died fighting in the French Army. Which we would learn more and more on our trip that different parts of the Rhineland often would be part of France, depending on the century or year and that some of these towns and villages would change nationality so frequently that some families would have German Grandparents, French parents and German children or vice versa. History certainly was an interesting aspect of our trip. But it was time to say goodbye to Schoenburg Castle as we continued down the Rhine to our next village, Kaub.
This is not a sponsored post. This is my experience from my trip with Viking River Cruises. Email me to find out how you can save $100 when you book your first cruise with Viking through their referral program.
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